


Drawing Love Across the Page

by tothebatcave53



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: College AU, College Parties, Drinking, Love Triangle, M/M, Partying, Pole Dancing Yuuri, Victor the book worm, but not really, mentions of phichit and chris hooking up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-15
Updated: 2018-09-15
Packaged: 2019-07-12 11:58:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,141
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15994727
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tothebatcave53/pseuds/tothebatcave53
Summary: Victor is trying to finish up his college career but he's lost all inspiration and drive. A random little sketchbook finding its way across his school desk really changes his life, that and a wild college party and one boy on a pole. Victor had no idea college could be so exciting.





	Drawing Love Across the Page

**Author's Note:**

  * For [miraculoushobi](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=miraculoushobi).



> This is written for miraculoushobi who provided the prompt: College/school au where they have class one after the other, and sit at the same desk. They don’t know each other but leave notes for each other on their desk all the time.
> 
> Hopefully you like what I came up with. I loved making Victor a student and Yuuri still show him life and love!

It’s Victor’s last year of his college life; finally, after four long years of sacrifice, diligence and hard work he’s ready to complete his final semester and step across a stage to accept his diploma. Except he’s lost all the love he once held for school, trapped in the endless day to day cycle that it seems to provide.

“You wouldn’t have burned out so bad if you came out with me once and awhile,” Chris says, applying the sharpest pointing eyeliner that Victor has ever seen. Chris is currently getting ready in front of Victor’s mirror, the shorts hugging his shapely ass tighter than Victor’s first year school budget had been.

“I have to study.” Victor pointedly puts his nose back into his textbook, most certainly not admiring his best friend’s ass and even more certainly not wishing he could go to whatever club Chris is visiting tonight. “Besides, if I lived the way you do, I would still be stuck in my junior year.”

“Not all of us can get through college without flunking out of a semester or two,” Chris says, good natured in his teasing remarks. It doesn’t bother him that he failed some classes, doesn’t eat away at his insides like it would with Victor. “Come out with me tonight.”

“I can’t,” Victor mumbles with a sigh.

Chris sighs as well, pats Victor’s thigh sympathetically through the thin afghan Victor has covered himself in and heads out.

Victor waits until he hears the front door shut before he lets the book fall from his lap. Truthfully Victor would love to drop what he’s doing and attend just one of these wild parties but he can’t. He is _the_ model student, an image carefully crafted until he’s become known by all teachers and students alike as the example of perfection. He has his own fan club. If he starts blowing things off now, with only a few months left and one semester to go in between him and a triple major, he could lose all those years of hard work and Victor can’t find the reasons to justify that.

He falls asleep that night with the book across his chest, pen sliding off his stack of notes.

 

***

 

The school day starts as it normally does, a quick protein shake before a jog from his apartment to the school building that holds most of his classes. The sun is shining, the sky is blue, the gentle breeze brings with it the smell of flower gardens and freshly brewed coffee. Its familiar, its expected; it’s so boring that Victor can feel himself dying inside.

He’s always the first to arrive at class, pressing open the door to a freshly cleaned classroom yet untouched by the comings and goings of the day. Lately the windowless room has started to feel more like a prison than it ever had before. Except today as Victor makes the slow walk to his seat in the front corner he finds a small notebook already sitting where he usually spreads out his own belongings.

It’s likely the janitors just left it there after the previous nights evening class in hopes that the owner would come back in, but here it still sits.

Victor gently moves it to the side, setting up his spot as he does every day. His laptop sits to the side, ready to pull up the slides of notes the teacher will have, his notebook lays open in front of him and three pens sit just to the right of where he lays his hand. Normally he’s start the readings due for the next assignment but today Victor can’t focus on the words. His attention is constantly pulled back to the small notebook and what could possibly be inside. If he left his notebook in a classroom somewhere, he’d be devastated.

“You’d want someone to return it to you if possible Victor,” Victor tells himself, justifying his already reaching hand. Surely there is some identifying information inside that can be used to find the owner. Instead he is greeted by flowing lines of dark blues and purples. A pair of skates is sketched on the page, colored with pencils. Another page has a dancer, bowed backwards with their arms thrown delicately over their head. Someone is likely missing their precious sketchbook filled with such beautiful and lifelike work.

Other students start to file in, the teacher giving a greeting as she comes in with a stack of papers to be returned. Carefully, Victor tucks it into his book bag, mindful not to bend the corners or tear the pages. It stays there, forgotten, for the remainder of the day until Victor is home that evening, going through his school work.

“Did you take up drawing?” Chris asks as he walks past the kitchen table, overseeing what Victor is up to.

“No, just something I found today in my lecture hall.” Victor traces the dancers face, admiring the delicate expression drawn there. “Just wondering how I’m going to get it back to its owner.”

He isn’t sure when the notebook was left, though he assumes it must be the last class of the evening before his since it went undisturbed until his 8am morning lecture. Victor is also unsure if that class, whatever the subject is, meets more than one time a week. His best bet is to leave it the same day as he guesses it was forgotten.  

Chris easily ignores Victor’s new and curious change to the day, it isn’t anything all that special but its broken up the monotony of Victor’s days. He looks at the drawings every day, until the pictures are burned into his mild in a most pleasant manner.

When it finally comes time to give back the book, six days later, Victor is sad to see the little notebook go. He goes in that morning early, carefully tucking his own note inside the first few pages.

_I hope this sketchbook finds its way back to you safely this way. I promise I’ve kept it safe since I found it. Your art is stunning, you made my whole week without even trying though I’m sure you missed your book and were worried it wouldn’t ever find its way home to you. Keep up the amazing work! -VN_

Victor leaves the sketchbook where he found it, brushing his fingers over the top with a small smile. It almost feels like he’s leaving a good friend behind but it's the right thing to do. “I hope you return back to whomever you belong to.”

 

***

 

When Victor returns to class one week later there is a piece of paper lying on his desk. The white sheet blend flawlessly in with the top, almost unnoticeable except that Victor’s bag ruffles it when he sets it down. It’s likely the only reason that the paper was missed by the custodians when they came through.

Curious Victor lifts it up and is greeted by the cutest poodle picture that he’s ever seen, stretched out on its back with a flower clutched in its mouth. It’s little whiskers almost seem to twitch when Victor moves the page. The dog drawn there looks like its smiling up at him.

It is singlehandedly the most precious thing Victor has ever seen. It might even bring a small tear to his eye.

In the corner there is a small note, written in neat little block letters.

_Thank you for finding and keeping my sketchbook safe and for finding a way to return it to me. I’m very grateful. I hope this little sketch is enough of a thank you. -YK_

It most definitely is enough victor thinks, smiling as he shifts the paper back and forth to see the poodle from different angles. He isn’t sure how this mystery person knew he liked poodles, maybe it's some sort of happy coincidence, but Victor is touched by the small gesture regardless.

A warm feeling spreads through Victor’s chest the longer he looks at the picture. He doesn’t know this mystery artist, male or female he isn’t sure and doesn’t care, but this person has brought some sort of change to the life that had dulled around him. Two weeks of waiting, one to return the notebook and now for this unexpected reply, its been the most fun that Victor’s had in a long time.

Instead of paying attention in class that day Victor spends the entirety of his lecture drafting note after note to this mystery artist. No matter who it is, Victor wants to meet them and thank them for all the fun he’s suddenly found himself having.

A coffee date would be perfect for just that.

With a huge smile across his face Victor signs his initials again, hugging the little note to his chest. Six days can’t pass soon enough so that Victor can leave his little note for the mystery artist and ask him out to coffee.

 

***

 

“Why won’t you stop moping?” Chris prods, nudging Victor’s very not moping butt with his toes.

“It’s nothing.” It isn’t nothing. Not to Victor. He’d left a note for his mystery poodle artist over a week ago hoping that an invite for coffee would be accepted. Instead his note had remained folded at the desk for three days before Victor had seen the janitor cleaning the classroom toss it.

“Look, just because your mystery boy didn’t accept your offer doesn’t mean you need to sit up here and waste away for forever. There’s a party tonight,” Chris purrs, giving his eyebrows an over dramatic wiggle as his toes prod further under Victor’s ass.

Victor leaps up with a yelp when Chris’ toes edge a little too close to places they don’t belong. He sends a glare at his best friend but Chris is already up and throwing his arm around Victor’s shoulder.

“Perfect you’re up and since you’re up you have no real excuse to give me except to say ‘yes Chris, I will definitely be attending Phichit’s party with you tonight’.”

Victor can really only groan as he’s led into Chris’ room to get ready for a party he had not planned on attending. But at least attending a party will be better than sitting at home, pretending to read his assignments while he instead wallows in self pity. “Yes Chris, I will definitely be attending Phichit’s party with you tonight,” he parrots dutifully like the good best friend he is.

“Perfect!” Chris says, smacking his shoulder before disappearing into the closet to find them both something to wear.

 

***

 

The party is loud and in full swing by the time they arrive, fashionably late. Victor thinks they might just be late but doesn’t argue as a glass of whatever their host is serving finds its way into his hand.

“You remember Phichit?” Chris asks as a young man greets them, holding out a phone for a selfie. Victor has a vague recollection of seeing Phichit before. He thinks Chris and him might have been sleeping together at one point but can’t be sure and doesn’t want to offend their host. He gives Phichit a warm smile and polite hug.

“Make yourselves at home in our apartment. Drinks are in the kitchen, bathrooms down the hall. Yuuri’s set the living room up as our dance floor this evening so don’t spill anything in there, I don’t want any broken necks,” Phichit jokes. “And have fun.” The look Phichit sends toward Chris as he wanders off to greet other guests confirms Victor’s suspicion that they most definitely have slept together in the past. Victor takes a long sip to ignore that he has no life outside of school unlike Chris.

“Why don’t you go check out the dancing?” Chris suggests, snagging his own drink.

Victor would really rather be at home in bed right now, reading, but doesn’t voice as such, couldn’t anyways over the loud pounding sound of the bass. He doesn’t know anyone besides Chris here and most people seem too intimidated by him to come over to chat. “I’ll just hang around the food for a while, people watch.”

“Alright, well… I’ll be dancing. If you want to come grind against me like we would in high school...” Chris trails off with a shit eating grin spread across his face.

“Thank you for that lovely memory,” Victor says with a snort, taking a deep sip of his drink again to drown the memory of high school dances spent rubbing up against his best friend. The drink and the memory warm his cheeks pink.

People watching is a terribly boring activity when all the people around you are simply set on consuming as much alcohol has physically possible. After his fourth drink, sobriety thrown out the window with most of these other people and seeing one too many idiots almost drown themselves in the sink trying to drink some water, Victor heads for the living room turned dance floor.

His steps are swaying now, his eyesight swimming but the sight that greets him as he enters the living room has nothing to do with alcohol. In the middle of the room a silver stripper pole stands, bolted into the ceiling and the floor. It doesn’t look like something that has been broken out for just this party, it looks like it is a permanent fixture for the apartment. He would stop to wonder more what type of home Phichit lives in but he can’t focus on anything but the person currently swinging on said pole.

Chris is there, half clothed as Victor would expect nothing less from his best friend but the man above him, twirling with one leg, his back bowed in a gorgeous arc, shirt thrown open and chest exposed, is unexpected and exquisite. It’s enough to stop Victor’s breath in his lungs.

“Viiictooor!” Chris hollers, drawing all eyes in his direction as Chris calls his name. The beautiful dancer pauses his movements to look at Victor half upside down, his lips pulling into a smile. “Yuuri! That’s my friend Victor I was telling you about! Go get him, get my man and show him how to have a good time.”

Yuuri, as apparently the dancers name is, swings over himself, giving Victor a perfect view of his ass covered only in a pair of boxers, pants nowhere to be seen before his feet touch ground.

“Hello,” Yuuri purrs when he saunters over to where Victor stands, star struck. The man presses up against his chest, fingers tickling over the buttons of his dress shirt. Alcohol reeks from his breath but his eyes are a clear and sparkling brown. “Would you like to dance with me tonight Victor?”

Victor vaguely has a fleeting thought that he doesn’t know how he can dance while this intoxicated let alone how Yuuri could have been pole dancing but he can’t find the words or the will to say no.

Yuuri takes his hand, pulling him into a clear part of the living room dance studio. His hips sway back and forth, hand running through his messy hair to push it back and out of his face. Victor stands, dumb and awestruck by the beauty in front of him.

“You have to move your hips some to actually qualify it as dancing,” Yuuri teases before his hands fall to Victor’s hips. “Let me help.”

“Okay,” Victor breaths, letting Yuuri guide him how he wants. The song is a rough pounding beat but Yuuri moves them gently, swaying and pressing them together until the only thing filling him is Yuuri.

“Chris told me you don’t get out to parties much.”

Victor nods.

“Neither do I, this is all Phichit’s doing. I just sometimes consume the alcohol he brings home.” Yuuri laughs, a breathless little sound that tickles at the base of Victor’s neck since Yuuri is slightly shorter than he is.

“Are you friends with Phichit?”

“He’s my roommate.”

“Ah,” Victor says, sounding smart but all he can think of now is that he’s in Yuuri’s home and somewhere in this home is Yuuri’s bedroom. Yuuri lives here and can swing on this pole whenever he wants to. Victor’s mouth goes dry at the thought.

“Its okay. Parties aren’t my thing much either.” Yuuri reaches for Victor’s hands, settling them on his own waist before his arms wrap around Victor’s shoulders. He guides them, leading Victor in small little steps now. “Half the time I don’t come to them, I hide out at the library until they’re over but I sure am glad I decided to come tonight.”

“Me too,” Victor whispers, feeling like the air has been sucked out of him.

The song changes and Yuuri steps away some, tilting his head. “Want to go find somewhere quieter?”

“Yes! I mean… ah, yes, that would be nice. All the people, I’m a little claustrophobic…” Victor fumbles his way through words, cursing silently. He can write academic papers to woo thousands but can’t form coherent non-embarrassing sentences in front of the cute boy standing right in front of him.

“Me too. I’ve got water in my room.” Yuuri’s hand slides into Victor’s, fingers curling to tug him forward. Victor is pretty sure his heart is going to stop.

They weave their way through the crowd of people. Victor can feel Chris tracking them with his eyes but then they’re down the hall and at the last door. Inside is quieter, darker. The door shuts behind them with a soft click and Victor is in the bedroom of a man he’s known for maybe twenty minutes, unsure of what might happen next.

Yuuri heads over to a small fridge he has by the corner of his desk, pulling out two bottles of water. “Here, drink this. You’re looking a little flushed.”

Victor is pretty sure his flushed cheeks have nothing to do with the alcohol. “Thank you,” Victor tries, clearing his throat when his voice catches painfully. His mouth really is quite dry.

Yuuri tosses him a smile and heads over to a small door, opening it up to reveal a little balcony. It’s tight, hardly big enough for two people to be on but he heads out anyways and Victor follows. The door closes behind them before Yuuri sits, shifting until there is room for Victor to sit down next to him.

“The party will die down soon but you can ride out the rest of it in here with me if you’d like?”

“I’d like that,” Victor says and gets another gorgeous smile in return.

They don’t do anything that Victor would expect, he thought that being invited to someone’s room at parties like these meant that they’d end up sleeping together, have one wild and crazy night and then never see each other again. Instead Yuuri tells him all about his dancing, how he’s double majoring in college to also be a physical therapist. They drink their water and sit under the stars. Victor tells him about his studies, his deep love of books and his academics but how he’s started to feel sucked dry. Oddly enough, Yuuri seems to understand better than anyone Victor has ever tried to explain to before.

“I thought I was losing interest in dance for a while, that I would never be good enough to continue  on.”

“But you dance beautifully…” Victor breaths, eyes closed with the deep relaxation that comes from sobering up. A slight headache is starting behind his eyes but Yuuri’s voice is soft and soothing on his nerves.

“Just because someone says it doesn’t mean I always believe it.”

Victor lifts his head, glancing over at Yuuri. His shoulders are hunching up by his ears, a frown maring those beautiful lips. “You’re right,” Victor says, kicking himself. How often has he felt not good enough with writing his papers, because there has been someone better before him. How many times has he lately felt like giving up for that reason. “I’m sorry, that was insensitive of me. Sometimes I don’t think before I speak. Comes with being stuck in a book most of the time.”

Yuuri laughs, a small but soft sound that brightens Victor’s world. “It’s alright.”

“What made you change your thinking? About dance?”

“I wanted to fall in love with it again; it’s as simple as that. I had to find why I fell in love in the first place and that’s what I focused on.”

Silence falls between them, the soft sound of the party echoing through the walls. It isn’t uncomfortable though, they’re simply existing together and its comfortable in a way that Victor has never really felt with someone before.

“Hey Yuuri.”

Yuuri looks over, a small smile turning the corners of his lips up. “Yeah?”

“Do you want to get coffee with me sometime this week?”

The smile grows and Yuuri nods. “Yeah, I’d like that.”

 

***

 

Victor finds himself excited to return to class Monday morning. He’d spent Sunday morning hungover but when he’d finally downed enough coffee, water and greasy food to feel like an adult with a functioning brain, Victor had cracked open one of his favorite books to refind his love for the academic world that he had come into with such starry eyes in the beginning.

When Chris finally wandered in close to five in the evening looking pale and drawn thin Victor had read most of his text.

“So,” Chris mumbles, snagging Victor’s water bottle from the nightstand. “You and Yuuri?”

“What about him?”

“Oh please, I saw you two dancing.”

Victor pulls his reading glasses off, fixing Chris with his best imitation of uncle Yakov’s ‘are you really trying to say this idiocy to me right now’ look. “And I saw you two dancing together.”

“Yuuri and I are friends, we started taking those pole dancing classes together back in freshman year. We just do that for fun.”

Victor is torn between murdering Chris for never dragging him with to one of those classes to see Yuuri dance sooner and thanking whomever had brought the pair together in the first place. He also longed to have that kind of fun with Yuuri and not have to worry about falling and breaking his nose, or something worse.

“You like him, don’t you?” Chris asks around a sip of water.

“I think it’s a bit early to say that, don’t you?” Victor mumbles but he feels his cheeks flush because he does like Yuuri.

A lot.

He’d been down because of his mystery poodle drawing boy rejecting him but maybe that had happened to push him into attending a party, to step outside of his normal comfort zone so that he could meet Yuuri.

“You’re such a terrible romantic.”

Victor flushes at voicing his thoughts aloud but Chris doesn’t tease him anymore, just drinks more water.

 

***

 

Victor thinks he only has the coffee date to look forward to in his coming week but when he steps into his classroom, ready to decimate the discussion they’ll be having on the reading he sees the sketchbook again. This time it's laying under the desk, having clearly fallen from the mystery artists bag when they were leaving class.

“You’re a bit forgetful it would seem,” Victor says, a fond little smile curling his lips.

Curious, despite the fact that he shouldn’t be looking through someone else's sketchbook without permission Victor flips slowly through the pages. There doesn’t seem to be anything new from the last time Victor looked a few weeks ago but it's still just as beautiful.

Near the end he finds a new drawing, a small sketch of a man sitting, gazing upward. The long line of his throat is exposed and beautiful.

With a small gasp Victor realizes that the reason the sketch seems so familiar is because its of himself. He doesn’t know how or why this mystery artist has sketched him but it must be the answer that Victor had been waiting for when he’d left his coffee date note and not received an answer.

It’s flattering and makes Victor’s heart leap with excitement but now he also has a date with Yuuri to look forward to and he isn’t sure what to do. He isn’t used to having choices, not having ever gone and done anything wild that involved other people and now he has two options. Yuuri or his mystery artist and Victor has never felt more torn up.

 

***

 

Their coffee date later that week leaves Victor shaking in his designer shoes but Yuuri is as easy to talk with sober as he was trashed. And Victor is just as smitten this time as well.

“So then she grabbed my poster off the wall and started to run. There was this super huge and comical shredding sound, like in cartoons before my little poodle takes off down the hallway and leaves me in my room, screaming after her as it shreds in half.”

Victor doubles over laughing, clutching his sides at the image of a tiny Yuuri screaming as his dog ruins the poster of his childhood idol. He shouldn’t laugh but the gusto and animation that Yuuri delivers it with makes Victor feel like he’s right there, witnessing Yuuri’s crushing and devastating loss first hand.

Yuuri smiles at Victor, thankfully unbothered by the fact that he’s the one whose past traumatic experiences are being laughed at.

“I’m sorry,” Victor says, wiping at his teary eyes. “That’s hilarious. I feel bad for your limited edition poster but…”

“I know. I think it's funny now...but I cried for days back then.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay, its a fond memory of my dog now. She wasn’t always so naughty. Just as a puppy,” Yuuri explains but his smile is good natured.

They go back to sipping their coffees, the silence between them contented. Victor lets his thigh brush against Yuuri’s under the table, watches that delicate blush crawl up those golden cheeks. A smile is permanently turning his lips up, one that hasn’t left his face since the night he met Yuuri.

 

***

 

Victor has to give the book back, in person. He has to end this obsession that they’ve been dancing around. While Victor is flattered by his mystery artists apparent interest and desire, he’s found Yuuri and while what they have is certainly new and Victor doesn’t know if anything will actually happen in the future, he wants to try and see what new doors and emotions Yuuri can open in him.

The note asking his artist to meet at a certain time isn’t ever answered but Victor waits anyways, hoping it was seen. The sketchbook is tight in his hands, clutched against his racing heart. He’s nervous, afraid of letting someone down and being let down in return.

“Victor?”

His head shoots up at the familiar sounding voice; across from him Yuuri is standing, giving him a small smile bundled up in a over-sized sweater. It is so adorable and so ill timed.

“Yuuri, what are you doing here!?”

“I had to come and pick something up. What are you doing here?” he asks, eyes falling to the sketchbook Victor is trying to absorb into his chest so that Yuuri won’t know he came here to meet another man. “Hey, is that mi-”

“It isn’t what it looks like Yuuri! I was coming to break it off, I swear.”

Yuuri’s face pulls with confusion and hurt, furthering Victor’s panic.

“No, no! It isn’t what it looks like, I only want to see you. This thing with the artist started before I met you but I met you because they rejected me and I went to that party and I met you and it’s been the best time of my life so far and I don’t know if you like me as much as I like you but I was going to ask you out,” Victor gasps out, face red and lungs burning when he refuses to even take a breath in between words. “But I had to break it off with this first because I couldn’t ask you out with a clean conscious if I was still letting someone else draw me and fantasize about me and I was about to do that now, but you’re here and I didn’t mean for this to happen like it has!”

A smile twitches across Yuuri’s lips after a moment, the words a slow thing to process when spewn in one long breath that leaves Victor panting.

“I was going to say,” Yuuri starts, a teasing glint flashing through his eyes now. “That that’s my sketchbook.”

Victor looks down at the book and then back up at Yuuri before back at the book again. “You’re my mystery artist?”

“Your mystery artist?”

“Well I mean…” Victor reaches into his own bag, pulling out the beautiful poodle drawing that he’s had laminated so it wouldn’t get ruined. It goes with him everywhere, a small little thing to cheer him up when he’s feeling down. “My mystery artist drew me this and then I saw he was drawing me when he kept forgetting his sketchbook and I thought it was because he liked me?”

“He does.”

Victor blushes a deep scarlet, his whole face heating up. “But I don’t understand, how are you and the mystery artist the same?”

“I sketch in my spare time, it makes me feel calm when dance or school become too much.” Yuuri reaches out, gently taking the poodle sketch. “You’ve kept it with you this whole time?”

“It’s so beautiful and well done… It meant so much to me to receive it.”

Now Yuuri’s cheeks flame with red.

Victor steps forward, taking Yuuri’s free hand and bringing it up to his lips. “I was so worried over nothing. The man I liked was also the man who rejected me and made me find you in the first place.”

“Rejected you?”

“I left you a note after the poodle drawing asking you to coffee. When I didn’t get an answer for a week I thought you didn’t want to go out with me and so I let Chris drag me to that party, where I ended up meeting you.”

“I was sick that whole week.” Yuuri blushes even deeper. “But that’s quite a way to meet someone…”

Victor nods. It makes him laugh, soft and grateful that the whole ridiculous situation has played out as it has. “I’m so lucky that my weird fortune and perceived misfortune led me straight to the man of my dreams.”

Yuuri giggles softly with him.

“So how about it Yuuri Katsuki, mystery artist extraordinaire and drunken dance master, will you go out with me?” Victor asks.

A warm smile curls Yuuri’s lips and his fingers curl around Victor’s own, holding them tightly. “I would love to.”


End file.
